“I know,” I said. “I mean...” Except I didn’t know how else to explain it. What happened if there was a night when Kota or anyone else couldn’t spend the night and I got a surprise visit from Mr. McCoy? I knew I was just throwing out guesses. Before it had been a possibility, but he was still a school figurehead and didn’t really know where I lived, or at least I thought I could believe that.
Now Mr. McCoy wanted something from me, and he’d been on my street. I felt that little bubble of safety had burst.
Mr. Blackbourne’s eyes darkened slightly. “Miss Sorenson, I’ve told you not to worry about it.”
“Sorry,” I said softly.
The corner of his mouth tilted down. He stepped back, planting my phone and his on top of the piano. He unbuttoned his suit jacket, shedding it and folding it over the top of the piano bench. He started undoing his red tie.
“What are we doing?” I asked, stunned to witness him undressing.
He hooked fingers into the knot of his tie and wedged it open until he could slide it off. “You are going to show me what Kota taught you this weekend.”
My cheeks heated. “Here?” I bit back the question that tickled my lips: With him?
Mr. Blackbourne nodded his head sharply. He unbuttoned the cuff sleeves of his shirt and rolled them up toward his elbows. “The way to build confidence in cases like this is knowing how to handle yourself in any situation.” He stepped forward, planting his hands on his hips. “If I were Mr. McCoy, what’s your first action?”
I touched the base of my throat with my fingertips. “To run.”
“Correct. Where?”
“What do you mean?”
“If you’re in school, where would you run to?”
“I ... suppose to your office.”
He nodded again. “If you’re close to it, you’re welcome to use it. If you know where I am or anyone else on my team should be, you need to find them. If neither are convenient, running out into the open within a crowd is your third option. Don’t corner yourself, and don’t run blindly.” He circled me and positioned himself with his hands outstretched. “And if I were Mr. McCoy and I were to come after you, what do you do?”
I wavered, trying to still my shaking. I gingerly lifted my hands. This was completely wrong. I couldn’t swing at Mr. Blackbourne.
“You’re not going to hurt me,” he said. “If Mr. McCoy won’t let you escape, what’s your first move?”
I made fists and swung slowly, like I’d done with Kota. I aimed for his stomach though.
Mr. Blackbourne stood by until my fist made contact with his stomach. Even with using my knuckles, I felt a hardened body, much like the others. None of the Academy guys were lazy. “I understand your hesitation,” he said, “but if you think you feel uneasy striking at me, you’ll feel doubly so when it’s the real thing. It’s going to be incredibly uncomfortable. You’re taught to respect superiors, and Mr. McCoy is not only an adult, he’s supposed to be someone in charge of you, your vice principal. He’s violated that trust. We need to break your hesitation.”
My body rattled through my core. “What if...”
Mr. Blackbourne’s hand shot out, capturing my chin. The move was so sudden that once he held me between his fingers, I jerked my head back. He held on, his steel eyes bearing down on me. “I’m not a psychic, Miss Sorenson. If there’s one thing the Academy tries to break from students, it’s to not to play ‘what if’ games.”
I held my breath, wanting to blink and look away but fearing to do so. I wanted to appear brave, even though I felt tiny and wanted to hide. “I’ll try to be better,” I said.
“You will be better,” he said, exuding the confidence I wish I could have believed was inside of me. His fingers softened against my chin, but didn’t release me. “You’ll get there. I promise, it’ll happen. You’ll feel more secure with time. You don’t have to hide behind us. You’ll stand next to us.”
The look in his eyes told me this was more than just about Mr. McCoy. This was part of his promise, their promise, to bring me into this group they’d created.
“Now,” he said. “When you face off with Mr. McCoy, if it ever does come to that, your job is to run, and if you can’t run, you will...” He paused with intention, his eyes telling me to finish.
“I’ll incapacitate him until I can run.”
“Which means?” he asked.
“Hitting him in the stomach or neck, or whatever is needed.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “And?”
I stopped. I wasn’t sure what he was asking. “And when he’s down, run away?”
“You’re not wrong,” he said, “but if you need to, you should call for help. Scream if necessary.”
“Scream?”
He nodded, releasing my chin to position his hands on his hips. “If you’re in a situation like this, hopefully you aren’t alone, but if you are, you should draw as much attention as possible. More than likely he’ll retreat if someone’s witnessing.” He started pacing around me. I stood still, facing the piano, watching him from my peripheral vision. “So if he’s chasing you or trying to keep you in place, you’ll...”
“Scream and try to run.”
“Correct. Go ahead and scream.”
I swallowed. “Now?”
“Learn to trust me, Miss Sorenson,” he said.
Trust. I opened my mouth, feeling ridiculous. “Help,” I said, although weakly. The potential echo in a music room made me nervous.
“Louder,” Mr. Blackbourne said.
I repeated myself, although a few notches louder than my normal speaking voice.
“You can do better than that,” he said. “Pretend you’re trying to get Kota to hear you. He’s on the second floor. Try to call out to him.”
I sighed, and then took in another deep breath. Maybe if I did it quickly, he’d move on to something else. I didn’t want to draw any more attention today from anyone else. I’d had enough of that already.
I parted my lips, summoned up the nerve, and did my best to cry out for help.
My throat seized on the first syllable. I coughed.
“Keep going,” he said.
I tried again, but my throat closed in the moment I got louder than a mild shout. I dropped my fingers onto my throat, opened my mouth wide and simply tried to get a vowel out between my lips in a screech.
But sounds scratched around my throat, and after only a couple of squeaks, my voice box refused to work.
I blinked in surprise. I tried again, but nothing changed. I looked at Mr. Blackbourne in a panic. I couldn’t shout? Or scream?
Mr. Blackbourne stepped around, motioning with his fingers. “Open your mouth,” he said.
I parted my lips, holding my mouth open.
He gazed into my throat. “Try again,” he said, still staring. “Do a range. Start from your normal speaking voice and go up in volume.
I did, but to the same result. At a volume just around shouting range, my voice started to crack. By screaming, there was no sound at all.
“Try a higher pitch.”
I did as he asked. My voice started to crack the moment I got over a loud talking volume. I couldn’t even manage to shout at that pitch.
“Try lower.”
I did, a little better, but my shouts and screams were ineffective.
Mr. Blackbourne frowned, shaking his head. “I’m sorry,” he said in a quiet voice.
My eyes went wide. “Sorry?” I said, in a quieter voice.
“It must have been the vinegar and lemon,” he said. He nudged his glasses higher with a forefinger. “Your vocal cords are straining, but there might be some longstanding damage."
“I can’t scream,” I said.
The corner of his mouth lowered. “Miss Sorenson, I don’t want to make a diagnosis just yet, but it may be that your voice needs more healing before it’s fully recovered that ability.”
I couldn’t remember the last time I did shout or scream. I got a little loude
r at times, but I hadn’t had to scream. And then I remembered the times I yelled with the boys and it came out as a screech. I'd thought at the time it was just my over excitement cutting off my voice. I wasn’t the type to scream much anyway. Now it was supposed to be a way to defend myself, and it was something so simple, and it wasn’t hurting anyone or hitting someone, and I couldn’t do it. “What do I do?”
Mr. Blackbourne’s eyes started working, darting back and forth as he gazed at my face, as if trying to calculate an answer. “The important thing right now is that we know. If we can, we’ll fix it.” I started to part my lips, but his fingers shot out, shutting down the questions. “And if we can’t, we’ll figure out another solution.”
But the answer was clear to me. My voice was broken.
ACCUSATIONS
By Thursday the following week, the good news was I hadn’t seen or heard from either Mr. Hendricks or Mr. McCoy.
The bad news was that everyone else seemed to have heard about the incident at the party about North and I in the closet.
The amount of notes dropped on my desk or funneled out by the others increased. It seemed to have turned into a game. North’s pockets were full by lunch.
I found myself cowering more and more beside the guys in the hallways. I tried to believe what Victor had told me, to not worry about what others think, and that the only opinions I needed to listen to were from those I cared about.
It seemed almost impossible to ignore the whispers completely. I thought the worst part had to be the horrible looks. Curious, judging and full of amusement. The girls smirked with suspicion dripping from their eyes. The guys leered with hope that the rumors were true. Get Sang in a closet and she’ll let you have a good time.
The boys, however, seemed dismissive of the entire thing. North was subdued, seemingly more than usual. The further into the week it became, the less he talked to me. I didn’t understand what was wrong but let him have his space. Perhaps this was what he warned me about staying away from him until he got over the drugs having been in his system. I wondered how long it would take.
What changed the most was lunch time. Instead of talking and eating like everyone around us, Academy students turned it into trying to get homework and studying finished.
“Between Academy work and the diner and football and other jobs, we need to get ahead of school work,” Kota told me one afternoon. “Evenings during the week and the weekends will be busier than usual. If we can manage to get homework done at school, we can be ready.”
On Thursday afternoon, a thunderstorm started up. During gym class, the boys had been playing baseball out on the field all week and the girls had been playing tennis. Since we weren’t able to do it now, we did our usual start up stretches and the coaches allowed everyone to talk or play basketball.
Nathan and Gabriel and I were discussing the upcoming football game and what to do this weekend when the rickety side doors of the gym opened. Mr. Hendricks appeared in the doorway, and strolled forward. He scanned the students, locked eyes with me and headed our way.
We all stood. I prepped myself, expecting Mr. Hendricks to talk to me. Around all the other students, it felt invasive. Why didn’t he just send a note along? If he came to fetch me himself, what other kind of rumors would start up?
He diverted when he located the coaches. He approached them, ducking his head close to them to whisper. The coaches nodded in approval. Mr. Hendricks turned back to us.
“Mr. Coleman. Mr. Griffin. Come with me, please?”
I caught Gabriel’s eyes. He shifted a shrug toward me. They walked off together and Mr. Hendricks led them out of the gym.
The moment they were gone, I fished my cell phone out from my bra.
Sang: Nathan and Gabriel were escorted out of gym class just now with Mr. Hendricks. They don’t have their cell phones on them so they can’t call. Should I do something?
Blackbourne: They’ll be fine. We’ll take it from here.
A female voice spoke behind me. “Something wrong?”
I turned. Karen knelt next to me. Her pixie cut brown hair was a little mussed from our earlier warm up exercises. Her gym T-shirt seemed to have shrunk, and it fit snuggly on her slim figure.
“It’s fine,” I said. “I think.”
“Your friends get called up to the office a lot,” Karen said.
That part wasn’t too surprising. “Do you share classes with them?”
“A couple,” she said. She brought her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. “They’re polite enough but they’re usually really reserved. Unless they have to talk to me, they generally don’t.”
I was surprised to hear this. I figured they weren’t actively social. Mr. Blackbourne had told them all to blend in but don’t get too close to anyone. It was just another reminder of their selective nature, I supposed. “It’s not you,” I said, trying to sound supportive and come up with a reason why they were so odd. “I think it’s the uniforms. They get a lot of negative attention already. I’m already in the mix but I don’t think they want anyone else getting picked on.”
Karen smirked softly. “They’re very mindful. I almost thought they were worried you would be jealous.”
A fluttering started in my belly and I flinched in surprise. “Jealous?”
Karen’s smile warmed. “Wouldn’t you be if another girl was talking to one of them?”
The idea seemed silly. “Of course not,” I said, although I uttered the words without conviction. I’d felt something like jealousy at the party when Jade, the raven-haired girl, had talked to North and then tried to get him into the closet with her. I didn’t want to think that was the same thing as someone like Karen talking to them.
Or was it? Was that why she didn't approach until after the guys left? She talked to me during class when the girls were separated. Today she was talking to other girls. I didn’t think anything of it until now.
Karen tilted her head. “Which one are you dating, anyway? I can’t figure it out. Or are you still convinced you’re just friends with them?”
It was confusing and complicated to me. Was I still supposed to pretend to be dating Silas? I couldn’t think of an answer so I opted to deflect with a laugh. “Why? Interested in dating them?”
Karen grinned. “Sweetie, they aren’t my type. Although I’ve heard more than a few girls asking the same question. They’re trying to find out which one you’re dating so they could ask the other guys.”
I waved my hand in the air as if this wasn’t important, even though my heart was pounding. Were girls asking them out? Have they been dating around? “They’re always so busy, I can’t imagine when they would find the time.”
Karen’s eyes lit up. “You little heartbreaker. You do like them all.”
My mouth popped open. “What?”
“You’re as green as grass. How’d you do it? You’re dating all of them, aren’t you?”
“That’s not really ... I don’t ...”
She leaned over more, placing a gentle set of fingers on my forearm. Her tone wasn’t suggestive or ugly at all. She seemed genuinely curious and amused, in a good way. “You told me before you’ve never dated anyone.”
I nodded. “Before I came here, most people ignored me.”
“I find that hard to believe,” she said. “But now you’re dating seven guys, and at the same time.”
My breath quickened and my face radiated heat. “I don’t know how it happened,” I confessed. Maybe I should talk to someone. The guys were confusing me. Karen was another girl and I was sure since she was pretty that she must have dated, at least a little. She seemed very nice, too. Maybe she could help me figure this out. “To be honest, I think I’m in over my head.”
“You’ve got that right,” Karen said, softening her voice, too, to not be overheard. “How are they not jealous over each other?”
“I don’t know,” I said, relieved she seemed willing to talk about this with me without judging. “One day they started ho
lding my hand. The next thing I knew, they were asking me out on dates. Only when I’ve actually gone out, I’m not with one of them, I’m usually with two or more.”
“Well, there’s dating and then there’s being a boyfriend,” she said. “Have any of them asked you to commit?”
“Not really,” I said. “They only seem jealous and uncomfortable if other guys outside of the group start talking to me.”
She pressed a palm to her cheek. “I don’t know if I should be jealous of you or feel pity. How do you keep up with them?”
“I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Have they kissed you yet?”
I blushed. “Not on the lips.”
Her eyes widened. “What about that rumor going around about you and North?”
“He kissed my hand in front of my mouth. He didn’t want our first kiss to be like that so he said he wanted to wait.”
“Aw! That’s romantic. But he hasn’t done it yet?”
“No.”
She flashed a smile. “Do you want them to?”
I shrugged, biting my lip. I didn’t really know the answer to that. “I keep thinking if one did, it’d make it more complicated or they would get jealous.”
“That’s a pretty crazy problem to have. If you’re that worried, why don’t you pick someone? Tell one of them you’d like to date him and tell the others to back off?”
Was that what I was supposed to do? It seemed like a simple enough explanation. “I don’t know how to choose.”
She smiled sympathetically. “You’re afraid of making the wrong choice.”
She said it so easily. It was true. Also, how could I choose between them? They all seemed perfect. “Is that common?”
She shrugged. “It happens.”
“So what should I do?” I asked, my eyes wide.
Karen laughed softly. “I don’t want to tell you what to do.”
“I could use advice, if you have any.”